Johann Hari has said goodbye to his illusions, while Nick Cohen and David Aaronovitch embrace theirs. Let's take a couple of representative passages. First Aaronovitch on Bush's nutty inaugural speech:

What Bush actually said was this: we went to sleep after the death of communism and forgot about freedom and all that kind of thing. Then came 11 September and we realised that it mattered. The 'deepest source' of America's vulnerability was the fact that 'whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny'. And the only force that could deal with these phenomena was 'human freedom'. Then came this, essentially a restatement of what JFK said more than 40 years ago. 'The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.'

Not everyone was petrified by the Bush vision. Jim Steinberg, deputy national security adviser under Clinton, complained to the New York Times that it was 'quite remarkable that one of the notions that's been so resisted by Republicans is the idea of a deep interdependence in the world, and now (Bush has) essentially adopted the notion that tyranny anywhere threatens freedom anywhere.'

Pick your jaw up, please. Now Cohen on the case of Hani Youssef, an Egyptian lawyer emigre set to be returned forcefully to his homeland even though he faces the threat of torture:

In the long-run the only solution is for the global move towards democracy to get moving again. In these strange times, the only person who believes that this is possible or desirable is George W Bush. In his inauguration address last week he announced that the 'survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.' And was feared and hated by right-thinking people the world over for saying so.

Now, two passages from Johann Hari. The first, in debate with the editors of MediaLens back in November 2003:

I refer you to George Bush, who said apologised yesterday for "decades of failed US policy in the Middle East… we should not tolerate oppression for the sake of stability." Nor, he implied, should they fund and arm it. Yes, it will take time to turn around all US policy: we can discuss (and must campaign about) the horrors of Uzbekistan and the House of Saud. But I believe it is beginning.

And from this week's article on the Bush inauguration, linked at the top:

After 11 September, some of the political thinkers I most respect started unexpectedly reading from this script about US foreign policy. Christopher Hitchens is a good example. For decades, he had exposed the monstrous anti-democratic policies of the US, from the Nixon-Kissinger years to Reagan's dirty wars in South America. But after the attacks on the Twin Towers, Hitchens argued that the vicious American foreign policy he opposed had died with Bin Laden's victims.

...

the rhetoric is flatly contradicted by US action on the ground, and we simply have to be honest about it. If Bush was serious about "exporting democracy and freedom", the best place to start would be with the authoritarian regimes he currently funds, supports and deals weaponry to. Egypt - which receives a $2bn handout from the US Treasury every year - has been under 'Emergency Rule' for 25 years now. Political dissidents are routinely tortured. Pro-democracy activists are jailed. The current President, Hosni Mubarak, expects his son to succeed him as head of state. A US president committed to spreading democracy and freedom would withhold the vast sums he sprays on this authoritarian state until there is an Egyptian perestroika.

Does Bush condemn the Saud Crime Family who oversee public beheadings and commit "widespread torture with complete impunity", according to Amnesty? Not exactly...

Hari then proceeds to add layer upon layer of reasons why the US' present foreign policy comportment is not that of a liberator, and concludes:

Nothing would make me happier than if the most powerful state in the world was committed to spreading democracy and toppling vicious governments. It is not; in many places, it is doing precisely the opposite. As George Bush begins his second term with another false cry, it is time to wake up.

Hari even goes so far, in replying to some questions in the comments box, as to apologise for having taken the US government seriously at its word - which redounds to his immense credit. Can you imagine any of the other zealots of the 'democratic revolution' recanting - after Abu Ghraib and the 'bread basket', Guantanamo, Fallujah, after 100,000 dead (and surely rising)? It is one thing to maintain that it was necessary to support the Iraq war simply because Iraqis would stand a chance of gaining from it (as Hari still does). To continue to argue, as if one didn't know better, that there is such a thing as "the global move towards democracy" in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary is a signal either of bad faith or of wilful dogmatism and self-delusion. The contrast is both depressing and encouraging.